Wild Roses: First Blood
by ginny29
Summary: Following on from Victoria Academy. Graduation looms and changes are coming. Away from the safety and familiarity of the Victoria Academy, Zechs and Treize summon the future, but there are prices to be paid for their dreams and personal costs to their professional success.
1. Chapter 1

**Wild Roses – First Blood**

**Chapter One**

_Early June AC 191_

_ Lake Victoria Military Academy_

Instructor Treize Khushrenada leaned his slender body back against the cool plaster wall of the Academy Great Hall and scanned his eyes around the room idly before flicking them to the elegant little pocket watch he was holding in his hand.

Spread across the space in front of him, arranged in neat rows and columns more than an arm's length apart, a sea of heads were bent over small, square desks, hair of every hue known to the human race shining in the sunlight pouring through the skylights above. Lithe bodies in identical uniforms shifted and fidgeted in the wooden chairs, giving some clue to the state of their owner's thoughts as they sweated over the papers in front of them.

It was warm in the Hall. Treize had long since discarded his uniform cloak and was wishing he could do the same with his heavy wool jacket. The cadets had to be feeling the same, but he doubted that was why they were sweating.

Most of them probably hadn't even noticed the rising temperature of the room as they worked.

Treize shook his head fondly, scanning the room again in approval of the level of concentration his students were showing, unusual at this point in the schedule. It had been brutal few weeks for the cadets as they faced their final evaluations. They'd all been pushed harder than they had even dreamed possible and they were all utterly exhausted.

The redhead wondered what the reaction would be from his charges if they knew their teachers were scarcely less worn than they were. Each cadet, after all, only had to worry about themselves and their friends if they were generous. They prepared, they showed up where and when they'd been told to, they were assessed and they were dismissed to fall into bed.

The instructors, on the other hand, had to worry about every cadet and all the logistics that made the testing possible, besides. Even tonight, when the cadets were celebrating the final exam being over, the instructors and staff would be working, frantically marking papers, compiling results, comparing transcripts and making decisions that would affect the lives of their students for years to come. Grades had to be awarded, promotions requested, assignments and recommendations considered. In two days time, each cadet would meet with their personal tutor for a confidential interview and their options, plans and dreams would be discussed. Two days after that, they would graduate the Academy as officers.

For three weeks, the entire Academy had eaten, slept and breathed the final evaluations. The lower classes had been dismissed in May as they always were and only the seniors had stayed on – to suffer through a whirl of medical and psychological exams, invasive and meticulous, followed by two weeks of brutal practical assessment and finally a week of rigorous theoretical exams. Treize had barely stopped long enough to grab a coffee as he chaperoned full physicals, supervised and marked practicals, offered revision classes for the theory and dealt with the human cost of such pressure in cadets who sickened, cried, and found they couldn't sleep. He'd dispensed support, reassurance and advice until his throat hurt, along with aspirin like toffees, tissues by the forest load and the occasional cup of hot chocolate.

He glanced at his watch again, and then let his eyes seek out one set of cadets in particular. Seated as they were, alphabetically by surname, several of those Treize was particularly involved with were grouped together slightly behind and to the right of the dead centre of the Hall.

The strong summer sunlight brought out highlights in hair of three distinctly different colours as the cadets in question shifted in place. Otto, easily the most fidgety of the three all through the exam, was chewing the end of his pen worriedly and the jerky movement was making coppery glints flash from his chestnut curls. Treize suspected the boy was vain enough to have hated it if he'd known, but the teacher had little sympathy. The same sun would be turning his own hair to a fiery halo.

Besides, if Otto wasn't careful, he was going to chew straight through his pen and then he really would have something to worry about. Ink all over his paper would not do his final mark any favours.

The instructor had gotten to know Otto reasonably well since the end of the autumn term, finding him dependable and good-humoured, if not particularly outstanding, and he knew why he was so nervous.

Otto's cumulative average up until the final assessment series had put him just within the top twenty of the class and he was desperate to stay there. He had definite ideas about what he wanted for his first active post and cadet folklore had long rumoured that the top twenty cut pretty much got to choose their own. There was a certain amount of truth to it – but Treize had already decided it wouldn't matter in Otto's case. It was therefore sweet but totally unnecessary for the boy to fret so.

The two cadets sitting directly in front and to the right of Otto had no such concerns.

Black hair flared blue and blond, pure white but the only movement from either student was the steady left-to-right progress of their writing hands across their pages. Their concentration was so absolute that from the moment the exam had begun, neither had stopped writing long enough to crack open the regulation bottle of water each cadet was allowed at their desk. The only time the pair had even looked up from their papers was to reach for the data-books provided, or their calculators, and neither of them had needed those very often, either.

As Julian Larkspur had said aboard the Aquarius, Noin and Marquise had been ranked first and second in the class from day one, switching only ever with each other. They'd come into the final assessments with averages only hundredth's of a point apart and had battled relentlessly for the edge all the way through. They were so closely matched that no-one, not even the instructors, would know who had finally come out on top until absolutely all of their marks were tallied. It had already been decided that each of their evaluations would be scored or marked twice to be certain of the result.

In March, Treize had been sure Noin was going to win – she had just an edge of talent as far as the instructor was concerned – but in the past few weeks he'd found himself not quite so sure. Zechs had changed in the last couple of months, developing a poise Treize would never have predicted and a focussed intensity even greater than he'd already possessed. Something in the boy had settled into a surety and self-confidence that complemented the sudden stage of physical development he'd hit. Treize was almost used to meeting his childhood friend's eyes directly now, and he was rapidly learning to enjoy the sense of equality in his interactions with the younger man.

Looking at him now, Treize was glad Zechs would never wear his cadet uniform again after the exam – it didn't suit him anymore. It was a child's costume, and that was something Zechs no longer was.

As the instructor watched, Zechs sat back in his chair, closed his paper, set down his pen and reached for the bottle of water. He twisted the top free, downed half of it in three easy swallows, and set it aside to give his head a little shake that made his ponytail dance across his collar. A moment later, he opened his paper at the first page and began to read swiftly.

Treize gazed approvingly at this evidence of exam technique and found his scrutiny returned across the Hall when Zechs looked up from his checking, set the paper aside a final time and met his gaze.

The instructor was invigilating the exam and it was a technical breach of protocol when he raised an eyebrow speculatively, as good as silently asking, 'Well?'

Zechs shrugged so slightly it was barely there and then smiled as he gave a confident nod.

Treize smiled back warmly. He'd known Zechs would do well - even if they hadn't spent endless hours in the last few weeks drilling all the theory and formulae the boy was likely to need - but it had been a tough paper and the teacher was glad to know his student had coped with it.

The blonde's smile warmed to match before he broke the eye contact to lean back in his chair and reach for his water again.

Treize huffed an indulgent breath and returned his attention to the rest of the cadet's.

Slightly behind Zechs, catching his movements out of the corner of her eye, Lucrezia Noin looked up in time to see his silent communication with their teacher. She smiled herself at the affection in the exchange and subconsciously finalised a decision she'd been mulling over for quite some time. Almost without thinking, she let the sentence she was writing slip slightly away from its original textbook perfection, stopped, re-read, and then continued the essay with an air of satisfaction.

On the far side of the Hall from Treize, Liliya Valadin watched her pupil's actions knowingly. She was about to make a very great deal of money from her fellow officers, and all by simply being a good judge of other women.

The exam finished some fifteen minutes later, to the great relief of everyone in the Hall.

Although every cadet was long too disciplined to move without permission, there was still a subtle wave of relaxation that swept across the room as the papers were collected; a little fidgeting and rustling to disturb the silence as Treize supervised the shuffling and depositing of the papers into the secured boxes he was monitoring.

There were no names on them – cadets were identified by randomly assigned numbers for each exam to prevent any cheating in the marking. Even so, the papers were still resorted into a random order, so that each instructor would receive a cross-section of the room and wouldn't be able to guarantee the marking of a favourite by deliberate selection of an area of the Hall. The same thing happened with the computer-based exams, with the master machine randomising which instructor received which answer file.

Zechs watched absently as the boxes were sealed shut and Treize authenticated the lock with his signature, idly curious about the way Valadin and the other supervising officers were deferring to his friend. Treize was Major Khushrenada now, true, not Captain as he had been for all of Zechs's training but the promotion was less than a week old, so new that he probably hadn't had to polish the new rank pins on his uniform yet. With one exception, every other officer in the room still had either rank or seniority in their favour and yet they were acting as though it were the other way around.

It made him wonder what they knew that he didn't. Even Vlad the Impaler was doing it and that was damning proof that something was going on all on its own.

Tracing thoughtless patterns on the rough surface of his desk with his fingertips, Zechs sighed softly and thought over what he did know.

He knew Treize had been expecting the promotion – he'd been pleased by it, but not surprised – and he knew the older man was leaving the Academy at the end of the term next week, just as Zechs was – he'd been packing his rooms up for days.

From several other clues, the cadet could also take guesses that Treize's new assignment wouldn't be nearly as sedentary as his teaching had been. The older man had been ruthless in what he packed for shipping directly home rather than to his next base, discarding a lot of the creature comforts he'd acquired over the last three years and paring back even his most personal items to bare essentials.

He'd been tightening his self-discipline lately as well, being as strict with himself as he had been in his sorting of his things. Zechs knew from a dozen shared meals over revision that the older man was watching what he ate, and he'd encountered his friend several times in the simulator suites or the training rooms, both alone and with other officers. Zechs had never thought Treize one inch out of shape but he hadn't needed Otto's admiring comments to notice the changes the regime had wrought. Treize was bringing himself back to the same peak of fitness and training the cadets had been honed to, and there had to be a reason for it.

There were the rumours, of course. Zechs had ignored them at first but they persisted, and in every retelling they grew more informed and determined. Rumour suggested that Treize wasn't just going to a headquarters post somewhere, as would have been obvious, but to active front line combat as no less than a full Wing Commander.

The blond cadet couldn't decide whether he wanted that to be true or not. It seemed unlikely, given everything, yet it was the explanation that fit Treize's behaviour best and it had both pros and cons that Zechs still hadn't weighed up.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Zechs knew that he himself was headed to a combat piloting post when he graduated next week. If Treize was about to become Wing Commander somewhere, then there was the chance that Zechs would get to stay with him but there was also a chance, a very real chance, that the older man was setting himself up to be killed.

Wing Commander was an incredible promotion from Academy Instructor, especially for a man who, despite all his merits and decorations, had never seen an actual field rank higher than Flight Leader, with responsibility only for a small sub-formation within the much larger squadrons that made up each Wing. It was a level of authority on an entirely different scale, requiring entirely different skills and abilities, and Zechs had studied more than enough history to know that no officer had ever achieved it so early in their career before, not in either the Alliance regular forces or the Specials. It meant a jump to a position within touching distance of the highest echelons of command, and represented a stunning opportunity if it had been offered – but Specials officers led from the front and Wing Commanders, accordingly, weren't known for their survival rate.

No, Zechs decided as the instructors conferred for a few moments about something, the rumour mill was wrong. Perhaps in other circumstances Treize might have gone for it but not with things as they were. He wouldn't take such a dangerous post with so little background, not with Leia and Marie in the balance; his life wasn't only his to gamble with.

Of course, Zechs hadn't been with the older man when he'd flown to Moscow for a few days in the Easter break – he'd remained at the Academy to give husband and wife vital time alone to come to terms with Leia's recent miscarriage – and by staying behind, he'd missed overhearing the first full-scale argument Treize and Leia had ever had. If he'd been in place to hear some of what they'd been arguing about, the cadet might not have been as quick to decide Treize wouldn't take the risk.

The officer in question broke Zechs from his thoughts a moment later by turning in place at the top of the room and letting his gaze roam the space. He gathered attention just with the gesture and waited until he had the eye of every cadet there before he spoke.

"Cadet class will come to parade rest," he ordered, his voice carrying without effort, and Zechs, like every other cadet in the Hall, stood from his chair and snapped to the posture required in the blink of an eye. He locked his hands behind his back and kept his eyes on his officer.

There was a pause whilst Valadin came to stand on Treize's right, Larkspur on his left and the other officers in a line either side, an action a little unusual. Zechs would have frowned if discipline hadn't held him.

Treize appeared to exchange glances with the Russian woman before he gave the next, expected, order. "Cadet class, dismissed," he said, his tone exactly as it always was.

The hall full of cadets relaxed, bodies drooping with relief and tiredness. Zechs reached to gather the few things he'd brought into the exam with him, hearing Otto's noisy sigh of contentment behind him with the first twinges of a smile.

Perhaps now he'd find the time to actually celebrate the fact that he'd turned sixteen on the 1st of May.

Treize halted the thought in its tracks by speaking again. "Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, pitching his voice to cut through the hum of noise. He had everyone's attention again immediately, all of them wondering what he'd forgotten to say.

The obvious, it turned out.

"Congratulations, cadets," the teacher intoned formally, making the hum swell in appreciation.

Treize paused for just another heartbeat before smiling with true warmth. "Congratulations," he repeated, "officers. And welcome."

Discipline or no discipline, Zechs couldn't help but gape in shock as every instructor in the room came to perfect attention in one fluid movement, saluting their students with parade ground precision.

The blond was halfway to returning to the salute before it dawned on him that it wasn't just the instructors who'd invigilated the exam standing in the line, it was every instructor, every officer, the Academy had on staff and that – though he somehow hadn't noticed it earlier – every last one of them was in full dress uniform.

And they were right, he realised, feeling stunned. God, but they were right! It was done, it was over! In a week, the class would have graduated and joined the ranks of the Specials as its newest officers but the passing out parade was only a formality. As each cadet had finished their paper, they'd also finished their training and that meant they were no longer cadets! There were no retakes on the finals and no one took them who wasn't going to at least scrape a pass. The moment Treize had dismissed the class from the exam, every one of them had made the jump from cadet to officer.

Zechs stared across the room at his friend, finding Treize looking back at him with a world of pride and affection in his eyes. He smiled as the officers broke their salute, raising his eyebrows in a silent question for the second time that day.

The younger man again gave a single nod as his answer, then found himself laughing helplessly, joyfully, as the room exploded into whoops and cheers as his classmates realised what he had.

In seconds, the ordered discipline of the Hall had dissolved into the excited chaos of celebrating teenagers, and the men and women who'd spent three long years drilling that discipline into them stood and watched it happen, most of them chuckling at the sight.

Movement from his right made Zechs break his gaze from Treize's so he could turn in time to catch Noin as she threw herself at him. She ended up a good foot above the floor as he swept her up and returned the exuberant hug.

"I can't believe it!" she squeaked into his ear, her voice driven high by excitement. "Did you know they were going to do that?!" she demanded.

Zechs shook his head. "I didn't have a clue, I promise," he answered, as he set her down and gazed at her fondly. She'd mussed her hair in her leap at him and her eyes were bright with pleasure, enhancing the unusual colour. She looked, he thought, very, very pretty. "Happy?" he asked, and Noin beamed at him.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed, then glanced beyond him as Zechs felt a touch to the small of his back. He twisted to look over his shoulder, then turned with a grin when he caught his roommate's soft brown eyes. They were sparkling with joy, too, and it was Zechs who reached for the hug first this time.

Otto returned it in a less dramatic fashion than Noin, but it was no less warm. "Fuck me," the dark haired boy sighed in relieved emphasis and Zechs laughed all over again. He knew Otto had been more stressed by the finals than either Noin or himself and had probably struggled with the paper they'd just sat – it was nice to see he hadn't suffered too badly.

"Later, maybe," Zechs whispered, feeling the mischievous streak Otto encouraged in him rise. "If you ask me nicely."

"Oh, promises…," Otto purred as he pulled away. He caught Noin's arm as he disengaged and tugged at her before she could react. "Come here, you," he ordered and Zechs watched as they hugged each other eagerly, any trace of enmity between them forgotten in the moment.

Footsteps behind him and the touch of another warm hand to his shoulder made him turn a third time, and Zechs bit his lip at the sight of his adopted brother. Treize had shucked his dress-cape again, carrying it folded over one arm easily as he smiled at the blond.

"Is it safe to interrupt, do you think?" he asked impishly. He looked as cheerful as Zechs felt.

"I don't know," Zechs replied, grinning as he looked over his two friends. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear Otto was taking advantage…," he drawled

There was a horrified yell as his words carried, followed by Otto and Noin letting each other go with unseemly haste. Treize chuckled at them, gave them a moment to compose themselves, and then offered his hand to each of them in turn. Otto he congratulated with a friendly pat on the shoulder, saying something in the boy's native German that made Zechs blink in incomprehension and surprise. He hadn't known Treize spoke the language. Noin, in her turn, received a gallant kiss to her cheek that made her blush bright red, much to the amusement of her male classmates, and a comment about 'hoping she would forgive the difference, since they weren't on a battlefield.'

Zechs, not quite sure what to expect when Treize finally turned to him, found that the older man simply used their handclasp to pull him into his arms.

"Congratulations, Illia," he murmured, his tone carrying all the pride that had been in his eyes, all the love that was never spoken of but always there. He, more than anyone else, knew what this day really meant to the younger man and the knowledge of it let Zechs sink into the offered embrace willingly.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Zechs felt utterly content. Now, he promised himself, things could really begin.


	2. Chapter 2 - Because it's 6613

**Wild Roses – First Blood**

**Chapter Two**

_Early June AC 191_

_ Lake Victoria Military Academy_

The distinctive scent caught at Treize's senses as he was occupied marking papers in the staff lounge later that night, distracting him from his reading as he looked up hopefully.

Hard metal clinked against the inlaid surface of the desk he was working over a moment later and Treize smiled in appreciation, shifting in his chair as a cloth –covered something or other sitting on a tray appeared in his line of sight.

"Hello, Liliya," he greeted warmly. "Is that what I think it is?"

Liliya Valadin settled herself onto the arm of Treize's chair gracefully and pulled away the concealing cloth with a magician's flourish to reveal the elegant, ornate lines of a samovar. It was an obvious antique; the silver metal of its construction was tarnished with age and the decorative etchings faded, but it was also obviously in perfect working order, as evidenced by the steam beginning to rise from the tiny vents in the body.

It was one of the smaller examples of its make, holding not much more than a litre of water at a time, but it was still beautiful and a welcome taste of home. Treize had seen it before, sitting in Valadin's rooms, but she'd never set it to working for him before.

From the edge of the tray, the lithe woman picked up a small copper kettle and set it securely in the crown of the samovar so that it would heat in the steam. Treize already knew the kettle contained the zavarka, the concentrated tea extract that would be mixed with the hot water for drinking – it was that he'd smelt at the door.

There were delicate glasses in their filigree holders on the tray as well, along with spoons, a tiny bowl of sugar lumps and a small jug of milk. Liliya was clearly planning to serve tea in true, grand old fashion – an impression enhanced when she smirked at him impishly and produced a bottle of vodka from somewhere under her clothes.

How on earth she'd managed that, Treize had no idea. As far as he could see, there was nowhere she could have hidden a bottle that size without it being immediately obvious. Like him, Liliya had left the exam Hall and straight gone to her rooms to strip off her uniform, shower and re-dress in clothes more suited to both the weather and the fact that they were off-duty. For Treize – and indeed most of the officers on the base – that had basically amounted to a t-shirt and a pair of light casual trousers but trust Liliya not to conform. For once, her tall, lithe figure wasn't hidden behind the layers and layers of her austere uniform – quite the opposite. Short of the times she'd been deliberately stripping for him, Treize didn't think he'd ever seen so much of her skin.

The thin silk summer dress she was wearing was a beautiful thing, oriental in style from high collar to screen-print pattern and probably very expensive. The cool, sheer fabric skimmed her body with just a fraction of space between it and her skin and the hem stopped a good three inches above her knee, leaving her legs, like her arms, completely bare except for her neat little sandals. She'd tossed a sweater over her shoulders in deference to the chill of the desert night but it wasn't fastened, and her hair was arranged in loose curls. If Treize had been getting surprised double takes from the cadets all afternoon – those who hadn't had cause to see him informally before, at least – then Liliya had probably been responsible for all out, jaw-dropped shock.

She'd certainly gotten the attention of most of their colleagues, the redhead noticed, smiling appreciatively at her as she shook the bottle invitingly, then leaned over to set it down on the table. She leaned a little further, to fuss with the samovar, and Treize instinctively found himself putting a hand on her slender waist to help her balance.

"Dare I ask what I've done to merit such an effort?" Treize asked her in their shared native tongue.

The female officer looked over her shoulder at him, eyes warm. "It's late, we deserve to celebrate, and there's nothing wrong with a little tradition now and then. Especially when I'll soon have no-one to share it with," she explained.

"Mmm," Treize agreed. "I meant you, my dear. Not your tea-set." He let his hand slip a little as he spoke, so that it came to rest just on the top of her hip.

The touch wasn't, quite, appropriate between fellow officers or even between friends but Treize didn't particularly care. There were two or three of the other male officers shooting him envious or jealous looks, one of the women looked downright disapproving and Julian Larkspur one table over was grinning at them, but none of them would say anything directly. None of them dared. Valadin would make their lives hell in the next academic year if they got on her bad side and the rumours about Treize's future were flying thick and fast. Even the slowest of them was bright enough to work out he could be a bad man to cross if there was any truth to the stories.

"What makes you assume I made the effort for you, darling?" Liliya asked archly, looking over her shoulder to raise perfectly shaped brows in a haughty question.

It made Treize smile; her little game playing was something he rather enjoyed and he'd learned to be quite good at it over the years. "Your make-up and your hair are absolutely perfect, Lils," he replied, chuckling coolly. "If you'd met someone else, they wouldn't be."

"I might have been stood up," she returned.

Treize laughed outright, then gave a tug with his hand that tumbled her off the arm of his chair into his lap. "Not a chance, my dear," he denied over her indignant squeak of surprise. "Not by any man with a pulse."

"Treize Aleksandr Nikolaievich Khushrenad!" Liliya exclaimed in protest. She aimed an open-handed slap at his head. "How dare you!"

Treize caught her wrist in his hand, stopping her from connecting. "Hush, woman," he bade. "I can live without my Sunday name, thank you. This is only where you would have ended up in any case," he said, gesturing at her position. "It just happens to have been on my terms rather than yours for once."

"Aren't you sure of yourself," Liliya returned primly.

"Yes," Treize answered. "And whose fault is that?"

For a moment, Treize wondered if he really had gone too far – Liliya's eyes were flashing fire at him, heat lightning behind the smoky grey – then she smiled at him indulgently and settled her weight more comfortably as she reached for her samovar again.

With swift, practiced motions she mixed the tea with the water, added a splash of vodka to each glass and sugar and milk to their individual tastes, then passed one to Treize.

The other Russian took it from her in careful fingers, turning it to grip the handle of the filigree holder before raising it in salute. "_Na zdorovje_, Lilishka," he murmured, and took his first sip.

"_Na zdorovje_," Liliya murmured back, "Sasha, darling."

Julian Larkspur shook his head at them, his expression resigned. "Bloody hell," he muttered in disgust, "it's the march of the Red Army."

Liliya didn't react except to raise a questioning brow; Treize levelled a cool look at the other man. "My family were Tsarists," he said quietly, reverting to English with no effort.

Larkspur blinked in surprise, clearly caught off guard, though whether he'd forgotten he would be understood or whether he'd simply though no one would make anything of it, Treize didn't know. "Sorry?" he asked blankly.

"My family were Tsarists," Treize repeated. "Russian nobility."

"Oh?" For a moment, Julian still seemed puzzled, then the light seemed to dawn. "Oh! Right! Of course they were," he agreed. "I shouldn't have expected anything else, I suppose."

Treize nodded in confirmation. "Most likely not," he said. "It's a fair bet to be the case for any officer with Russian blood and a noble title. Referring to us all as the 'Red Army' is likely to get you into trouble. Russians have very long memories."

Larkspur bridled. "For God's sake, man, it was only a joke!" he defended. "I wasn't intending to offend you."

"Will you still think it funny when I tell you I have Romanov blood?" Treize asked softly and found a certain amount of sadistic pleasure in the shocked looks the remark garnered him. More people than Larkspur had obviously been listening, and even Liliya was looking at him in surprise.

"I didn't know that, darling," she said eventually.

"I don't think anyone did," Julian spluttered. "Damn, Khushrenada. You're just full of surprises. I thought my family was old…!"

"Quite," Treize quipped. "I'm not offended," he told the engineering officer. "But I know several officers who would have been, and there are a few cadets on the lists who might have found your joke in poor taste."

Larkspur relaxed a little. "Ah," he sighed. "Thanks for the head's up." He turned slightly to look at Valadin, openly curiosity marking his pleasant features. "I'm sorry if I offended you, as well. It didn't occur to me that your family might have such a connection."

Valadin nodded politely. "Thank you, Julian, but mine doesn't – we're not nearly old enough." She looked up at Treize again, studying him closely from her vantage point. "I really didn't know that about you," she said to him alone, speaking once again in Russian. "Why hadn't you told me?"

"It honestly hadn't ever occurred to me to," Treize answered her. "I didn't think it would matter."

Liliya turned her head to look at her tea glass. "It doesn't, I suppose," she said. "I simply wasn't aware. Perhaps I shouldn't have let you marry after all," she added, forcing lightness into her tone and the teasing smile that touched her lips. "If I'd known what a prize I'd had in my hand, so to speak, I might not have been so willing to share."

Treize laughed at her, as he was expected to do, but he raised a wondering eyebrow when he was sure she wasn't looking. He'd known her long enough and intimately enough that he hadn't missed the strain in her cover of good humour, and it made him think.

Not knowing what to say that wouldn't be either an obvious change of subject or horribly tactless, Treize contented himself with turning his attention back to the papers he was marking in the vain hope of getting through them soon enough that he wouldn't be sleep deprived in the morning.

Liliya let him work without interrupting him – she'd waded through too much of her own work in the last few weeks to do that – occasionally moving her weight a little as she topped off his glass, first with tea laced with a splash of vodka, then with tea-and-vodka in fairly equal measures and finally, as the hour began to grow truly late – or early, as the case was – with vodka with a splash of tea.

The staff lounge emptied slowly as Treize marked paper after paper, one after another of his colleagues finishing their own workload for the night or becoming bored with whatever pastime they were indulging in and saying their goodbyes as they drifted off to bed. Eventually, only Treize and Liliya were left, with Julian Larkspur still sitting near them, reading peaceably.

Liliya reached to refill Treize's glass again, and the smell of the contents warned him she'd abandoned the tea altogether before he took his first sip. He swallowed slowly, then looked up as a hand suddenly appeared across his pile of papers, preventing him from applying his pen to them.

"Hand them over, Khushrenada," Larkspur said good-naturedly, grinning at the way Treize blinked at him in delayed surprise.

"I beg your pardon?" Treize asked carefully. Liliya had, he realised as he moved, fed him more of her vodka than he'd thought and his head was just the slightest bit fuzzy from the alcohol.

"The exam papers – hand them over. I'll finish them and pass them back tomorrow for you to check." The older man canted his colleagues a look that might have been affectionate. "She's obviously determined to get you drunk," he said cheerfully. "And if she pours much more of that 'tea' down you, she'll succeed, so give me the papers, before you decide the words to the Hymn of Russia constitute the right answers, be a gentleman and stop making the lady wait."

Treize shook his head slowly. "Thank you, but no. It's my responsibility and…."

"Don't be an idiot, man," Julian interrupted mildly. "Call it a leaving present if you want and go and enjoy yourself. God knows, one of us should!" He closed his fingers around the top edge of the papers and tugged. "If you have to make it up to me, promise me you'll fence with me before you leave," he instructed.

Treize blinked again, resisting the pull until Liliya lifted her head from his shoulder where she'd been resting it and smiled at the two men. "Let him, darling," she instructed softly and Treize conceded silently, releasing his hold on his exam papers.

"Thank you," he told the other man. "Let me know when," he added, and felt a measure better when the engineer grinned brightly and nodded once before stepping away from the table to scoop his own things and heading for the door. "Have fun now," he ordered and let the door close solidly behind him.

Liliya sat up a little more as it did, stretching lithely as she looked at Treize. "And look at that," she said wonderingly. "We're all alone."

Treize smiled at her. "Do we need to be?" he asked.

"We might, at that," Liliya answered. She settled back into herself, then took one of Treize's hands in hers, using it first for balance as she hopped to the floor, and then to pull him to his feet as well. "Come with me," she bade quietly.

Obediently, Treize gathered up the stuff she directed him to, clearing the lounge of all their personal belongings, and then followed the woman from the room and down the corridors to the officer's suites. His own was on the top floor, but as he tried to turn to head there, Liliya tugged on his hand again and he realised she was heading for her own rooms on the ground floor. "Lils?" he asked in vague surprise. It wasn't that he'd never been in her suite before – he had, many times, but it was unusual, especially when Treize was fairly sure of where the evening was going.

"Shush, darling," Liliya ordered. "Allow me my plans and secrets," she said with an impish smile. "I have something… different… in mind for us tonight."

'Different' in Liliya-speak covered a hell of a lot, most of which was complex, embarrassing or painful for the other party involved and occasionally all three at once. To date, it had always been the worth the payoff, but Treize wasn't sure he either wanted or was up to Liliya's usual games this evening.

Valadin, glancing over her shoulder at the tall man, read his hesitation from his body language with all the ease of the expert she was at such things. No, he wasn't willing for her mind games and mild bondage scenes tonight; he hadn't been for months.

In fact, the last time she'd managed to coax him into anything along those lines had been a quick, spur-of-the-moment encounter in one of the suit sheds at the end of the February half term. Both involved heavily in all the final live-fire training exercises as they had been, they'd found themselves working late in the deserted shed. Predictably, boredom and stress had converted into lust for them and they'd wound up against the side armour of a silent Tragos, Liliya's skirt hitched up around her waist and her hands tied firmly behind her back with a spare bit of electrical cabling.

Three days later, he'd learned his wife had lost the baby no one but Treize and her doctor's had known she was carrying and he hadn't been the same since.

Liliya had bullied most the details of what had happened out of a distraught Zechs, by catching him unawares and keeping him talking around the subject of their mutual friend until he began to slip in his plans of keeping it all under his hat. To his credit, Valadin had been quite impressed with both the little blonde's tenacity – making people talk was half of what she did, after all – and with the way he'd handled the older man. Mostly for his sake, she'd kept her own silence on the subject until Treize had approached her himself.

He hadn't wanted her for sex for those first few days – she hadn't thought he would. She'd been quite happy to be the friend she also was to him; she'd even encouraged and supported his decision to fly to Moscow during the Easter holidays despite how insanely busy they both were.

In retrospect, that had been a mistake. In proposing it, Liliya had hoped that time spent with Leia would allow both husband and wife to talk, grieve and move on – what had happened was upsetting, yes, but it wasn't a tragedy, not when both Treize and Leia were young and healthy and already had one thriving child – but whilst on some level that appeared to have happened, Liliya was also sure that something else had occurred whilst Treize was at home that wasn't so positive.

The other Russian officer had shown no objection to her bed when Liliya offered it on his return but there had been something about him whilst he was there that didn't ring true. Instead of their customary playful, laughing, passionate tumbles, Treize had come across as though he were using her as a coping mechanism, seeking the mindlessness of physical release in her arms. It hadn't made him a bad lover – she'd taught him too well for that ever to be true – but it was worrying on a number of levels, not the least of which was that he felt he needed such a natural painkiller.

More troubling was the knock his confidence had taken. Even in the very beginning of their relationship, Treize had been inexperienced but not shy or hesitant. These past few weeks, though, he'd been uncertain as a lover. Liliya had gained the impression that somewhere, somehow, Treize had become a little nervous of sex, subconsciously frightened of the act itself and everything that went with it. He was absolutely fine with foreplay, with heavy petting, with every trick she possessed orally and manually but the moment things strayed into the realms of full intercourse, he became skittish.

It was a bad thing, very bad. Treize, by nature, was a deeply sensual man and he couldn't afford to lose contact with that part of his nature. Not only was he reliant on his sex life to release stress and burn off the more strange of his impulses and emotions, not only was it going to mean trouble with little Marquise in the future if Treize couldn't tap one of the traits they shared most fully to understand him, but there was also the issue of his recent promotion.

Where Treize was going in a few days time, a loss of focus and confidence would be fatal. Liliya wasn't about to let him put himself at that risk without doing everything she could to help.

The trouble was, she was running out of time. She had only tonight, most likely, to jolt Treize back into normality and she'd had to think long and hard about how to do it.

Fortunately, her imagination had always been one of her best traits.

Smiling up at Treize warmly, she held out one hand and squeezed when he caught her fingers in his. "Come with me, darling," she bade quietly, and he obeyed without hesitation.


	3. Chapter 3

**Wild Roses – First Blood**

**Chapter Three**

_Early June AC 191_

_ Lake Victoria Military Academy_

.

"Oh, wow. There's something you don't see every day."

Zechs's voice, accompanied by a disbelieving whistle, broke the stillness of the morning air and made Treize flinch. Annoyed, he looked up from keying the code into the door of his office and scowled at the tall figure of his friend.

The blond straightened from his relaxed slouch against the wall by the door, tilting his head as he smiled cheekily. "You had an interesting evening, from the look of you," he teased, then let his smile become a full laugh as Treize levelled him a cold look. "And don't glare at me because your head hurts," he chuckled.

"I'm not glaring at you because my head hurts," Treize countered shortly. "I'm glaring because you deserve it and I'm not in a mood to be lenient. What do you want?" he asked as he got the door open and stepped through it.

Zechs followed him without waiting to be asked. "Well, at risk of sounding like an idiot," he started, wandering aimlessly over to the desk to fiddle with one of the paperweights Treize kept on it. "And at equal risk of wildly over-stepping the bounds of protocol, the first thing I wanted was to ask if you would come out with us tonight. Seeing the state you're in, though, I'm wondering whether to bother." He tossed the paperweight from one hand to the other lightly, making Treize fear for the crystal for a moment, until he recalled the blonde's reflexes and coordination. "I don't think I've ever seen you hung over," Zechs admitted. "You are, aren't you? Hung over?" he clarified.

Treize debated lying but settled for shrugging carelessly. "A tad," he agreed, wondering what reaction the admission would get.

Less than he'd been expecting, apparently. Zechs raised a speculative, too-knowing eyebrow, then simply smiled sweetly. "Nice to know it's possible," he said quietly. He set the paperweight down on the desk in precisely the same spot it had come from and took a few random paces across the room. "I'll have to see if I can manage it some time."

"Being hung-over?" Treize asked, studying his friend. Even in his bleary state, he was sharp enough to notice there was something changed about the way the younger man was acting. "I would have thought you'd had more than enough experience of that by now."

"Getting you drunk enough that you would be the next morning," Zechs retaliated mildly. "Who did, or should I not ask?"

"You shouldn't ask," Treize told him, still studying. He would have said the blond was nervous, except that, if anything, Zechs's posture was looser and more relaxed than Treize was used to. "Unless you actually want the answer."

"Ah, then, I'll live in blissful ignorance, thanks," Zechs replied after a pause, his shoulders tightening just slightly. "I had a call from your wife this morning," he said a moment later.

Treize broke off from scrutinizing his former pupil and slipped past him to scan his eyes over the folder sitting in the middle of his desk. The look of it, and the note attached to the top, let him know it contained his outstanding papers from Julian Larkspur and he silently thanked the other officer as he whisked them up and bent to slide them into his desk drawer. He trusted Zechs completely but there were still protocols to follow.

Bending down made his headache spike from a dull feeling of heaviness to real pain and he put his hand on the edge of his desk for balance as he straightened up again. "Was that the second thing you wanted?"

"What?" Zechs asked. He'd turned in the brief silence and now seemed to be taking his turn at watching the other man in the room with him. Treize couldn't see his eyes behind his glasses, but he knew he was being examined in minute detail by the way the blond was standing and the small lines between his drawn together brows.

"To tell me Leia had called. You said asking me to come out was the first; was that the second?"

The younger man shook his head as understanding dawned. "No, actually," he said. "It was the third but I think the second really can wait for another time. Did you know Leia was coming to the graduation ceremony?" he asked.

Treize blinked in surprise. "No," he answered honestly. "I missed a call from her last night whilst I was out, admittedly, but she hadn't mentioned even thinking about it when we spoke last week."

"Oh, right," Zechs said, sounding puzzled. "She called to congratulate me on finishing my training, I think, but when I pointed out it wasn't strictly speaking done until next week, she laughed and said she'd say it again then, in person. She seemed quite excited about the Ball."

Treize stared at his former student, then lifted one hand to rub at his temples wearily. "What on earth is she thinking?" he asked. "Why wouldn't she tell me before deciding something like that?"

Zechs shrugged. "Don't ask me," he answered bluntly. "Maybe she just wanted to see the place before we both leave it."

"Maybe. Thank you for the warning, in any case," Treize said. He rubbed at his temples again, then looked around himself blankly, knowing he had work to do and caught with thoughts of Leia coming to the Academy and what that would mean for his free time and his packing, and his interactions with his colleagues. He wondered briefly if he could head her off if he called her this morning, then rejected that idea at the thought of how disappointed she would be.

A quick glance across the room sealed the deal – Leia wouldn't be the only one disappointed. A lot of the cadets would have their entire families in attendance at the graduation ceremony. Why should Zechs be denied the closest thing to it he could get, just because Treize was uneasy with having his wife on-base?

He sighed, feeling the comfort and relaxation of his night with Liliya fade away at the added stress, leaving him with just his hangover and too much to do in too little time. He'd known the moment he woke to his alarm that morning that he'd drunk too much of Liliya's vodka the night before, but he hadn't really felt the full force of it until now.

The sound of a low chuckle from behind him made Treize turn his head to see that Zechs had moved to the window and was opening it to let the fresh morning air into the room. "That's an interesting colour you've gone," the younger man laughed. "Sit down," he instructed.

Lacking a real reason for not co-operating, Treize obeyed automatically, dropping to sit in his desk chair tiredly. He closed his eyes and only knew the blond had stepped close to him by the sudden scent of him nearby. The clean, warm aroma Treize was used to from Zechs was layered with the faintest traces of stale cigarette smoke and an indefinable musk, and the change made him look up sharply as the younger man began emptying things from the pockets of the loose fatigue trousers he was wearing.

"Dare I ask what you were doing last night?" he enquired, a little more curtly than was really warranted, seeing the pile of random things growing on his desk from the corner of one eye. It was a telling collection, confirming his suspicions all on its own – a handful of loose change, Zechs's base I.D. card, three strips of tablets, a few crumpled flyers for various clubs, a handkerchief, a small, nondescript plastic tube, two spare hair ties and several of the little foil packages used by condom makers the world over.

The bright colouring and distinctive shape made them jump out at the instructor, as though deliberately drawing his attention, and he had to force himself to ignore the fact that two of the wrappers were torn open, their contents missing.

"Not unless you actually want the answer," Zechs replied quietly. His words were a direct repeat of Treize's own and his eyes, when he met the older man's, were frank and unapologetic. He separated one of the strips of tablets out from the rest of the stuff, pushed it towards Treize, and swept everything else off the desk into one hand with the other to drop it back into his pockets. "Take a couple of those," he suggested. "They'll make you feel like living again. Do you want a glass of water?"

Treize cut his gaze away, shaking his head as he picked up the pills and felt heat touch his face. Why the hell was he embarrassed? He'd known for months that Zechs was sexually active, had practically thrown him into bed with Otto for what he seriously suspected had been the blonde's first time at Christmas and then gone out the next day and slipped away from his wife to buy him a box of condoms himself. Shouldn't he be happy about seeing clear proof that Zechs was being careful in his encounters? It was only what he'd drilled into all his cadets for the last three years, and into the blond specifically and personally.

He had no idea why he'd suddenly come over so prudish in any case.

When the Lake Victoria Academy had established its early-entry Officer training course some fifteen years earlier, one of the first issues that had arisen had been the level of pastoral care offered to the students. By lowering the minimum intake age to twelve, the course was effectively replacing all the trainees' secondary education, accelerating their learning up to university level in an exceedingly short space of time. In order to accomplish it, an awful lot of the general curriculum had to be abandoned in favour of the specialised training they were at Victoria to receive but one class offered at any ordinary school had been retained.

For many cadets, the three years they spent at Victoria were also the years of their physical maturation. Ignoring that fact and not teaching them the material they needed to have and were naturally curious about had rapidly led to problems and so it had been decided to incorporate it into the curriculum, in a round about fashion.

In the initial orientation sessions, every prospective cadet, and their guardian, was made aware of the availability of a self study program on the subject of sex and reproduction. Cadets were expected to work through it during their time at the Academy and many of them did so – in typical teenage fashion – in a matter of days.

New Instructors were also informed about its existence and were carefully vetted to make sure they were comfortable with the subject. This particularly applied to those also being considered as personal tutors, because on them would fall the burden of every non-Academic matter concerning the cadets in their tutor-groups, including their progress with the self-study kit and any personal issues or questions they had. It had been only logical to make it the tutor's job because, as Treize had been blithely informed by the officer he'd replaced, voices broke, periods started, wet dreams happened and the personal tutor dealt with it all, anyway, so why not make it an official responsibility and give them the tools to answer the questions?

In the past three years, Treize had been responsible for dozens of cadets from five different classes, and had learned that his predecessor had been dead on right in his warnings. He'd lost count of the number of times a horribly embarrassed trainee had banged on his office door and shyly asked if they could 'ask him something personal.'

In response, he'd covered any number of topics and answered a thousand different questions, soothing each cadet past their particular crisis in a manner that was both forthright and friendly.

It was a reflection of his nature that his advice was often weighted towards the practical, unless the question was directly about the religious or ethical implications of something. Nor did he waste time with ideas he considered ridiculous – the notion of trying to tell career-military teenage boys that abstinence was a viable option was about the funniest thing he'd ever heard in his life. Instead, he spent far more time than was required driving home the message that sex was natural and healthy, damn good fun and possible in any number of ways and combinations, all of which were perfectly acceptable provided they were acted upon in a safe, sane and consenting fashion.

And it wasn't even as if Zechs hadn't been one of the cadets he'd taught – he had been, and in far more detail than most. Unlike other cadets, Zechs didn't have parents and siblings to turn to when they went home for the holidays. For him, Treize filled every trusted adult position such information could be expected to come from – he was father, teacher and older brother in one go. The blond might not have asked very many questions over the years, especially once he had access to the Academy's study kit but, in contrast to Treize himself – who'd fallen within the later end of the normal age range for most of his development – Zechs had been comparatively precocious for his age, necessitating some fairly frank discussions between the friends even before they became cadet and tutor.

Why, then, was he turning colours at the sight of a few condoms? It was annoying, especially when Zechs himself was totally unfazed.

Treize had no idea, but the sight of the empty wrappers had at least given him his answer to the puzzle of Zechs's behaviour. The relaxed posture and languid air the younger man was displaying were exactly the same as those Treize had been feeling all morning. Otto, it seemed, had been right.

Taking a steeling breath and finding a smile, the teacher lifted his head and raised a knowing eyebrow. The boy was sixteen, a graduate officer and, as Treize had repeatedly thought to himself, not really a child anymore. Time to start treating him accordingly. "Whatever it was, you look like you enjoyed it," he commented softly.

Zechs started at the words, caught off guard by their teasing nature. He was used to Treize reacting badly to any evidence of his sex life, not tweaking him with it. "It had its charms," he admitted cautiously, looking wary.

"I'm sure he did," the Instructor dared, and had to fight to keep from laughing outright when Zechs's jaw literally dropped in shock. "If you can comment on my evening, I can comment on yours," he said, smirking.

There was another moment of Zechs gaping like a landed fish, and then the boy closed his mouth, shook his head and threw his hands into the air in defeat. "Just when I think I've got a handle on how you're going to react to something, you pull something like this," he muttered.

"Unpredictability is the mark of a good commander," Treize returned smoothly. "What did you say about inviting me out?" he asked, deciding he liked bantering with his friend like this.

"I'm going out with Otto and Noin and some of the others tonight. We're supposed to be asking some of the instructors if they want to come as well. I said I'd ask you. No one else would dare." Zechs rattled off his explanation hurriedly, scowling as he gazed at his friend.

"Your classmates are all really that intimidated by me?" the instructor asked, smiling.

"Apparently." Zechs was studying him again, eyes intent behind his glasses. "Damn," he said with no warning. "The rumour mill was right, wasn't it?"

Treize raised an eyebrow at the question but ignored it as though it hadn't been asked. "Where are you going, and who else have you asked?" he wondered. He was inclined to say yes, if only for the sake of the tradition one of Zechs's friends must have been told about, but not if he would be the only adult in amongst hordes of teenagers.

"Noin's asking Valadin, Otto said he'd try Larkspur. Some of the others have gone to their personal tutors or favourite teachers so there should be quite a few of you, if that's what you're worried about. I have no idea where we're going – I figure we'll decide when we get there." Zechs tilted his head. "Treize, answer the question," he pressed.

"Impatient," Treize chided. "As long as I'm not the only officer, I'll come," he agreed.

"Not that question." Zechs shook his head. "Where are you going when you leave here?" he quizzed. "There have been rumours flying about for weeks. I wasn't sure I believed them but they're true, aren't they?"

"That would depend on what they say I'll be doing," Treize hedged. He spread his hands, delaying as he thought of a way to phrase the answer to what was a very awkward question. "I haven't heard them, understandably, so I can't comment on the accuracy but I can tell you that any information you might have heard is incomplete, at the least." He paused again, then shrugged lightly. "You should bear in mind that the exact details of an Officer's orders are always sealed from public record until their effective date," he reminded, hoping the subtle hint would be enough. "Especially when they contain strategic or controversial information."

He waited until Zechs's face shifted to stunned comprehension, then looked away. "We'll discuss it tomorrow, in your counselling session," he promised.

For a moment, Treize thought Zechs was going to push the issue but then the younger man nodded his acceptance. "All right," he agreed. "Tomorrow, then." He stopped, yawned, hurriedly covering his mouth with one hand, and then shook himself. "Oh, excuse me," he apologised. "Time I went to bed, I think."

Treize blinked in surprise. "You haven't yet?" he asked. "I wondered why you smelled of cigarette smoke."

Zechs shook his head. "Not yet. By the time we got back and I'd seen everyone else to bed and what-have-you, there was no point. I wanted to catch you before you started work for the day, and you were later than I thought you were going to be."

"Ah," Treize agreed. "Go, then. Sleep. What time do you want me this evening?"

"Eight-ish, but don't worry about being prompt. Someone always runs late and we'll wait for you if we have to." The blond yawned again as he finished his sentence, then gave a little wave with one hand as he turned on his heel and headed for the door. "Sorry, but I'm going to fall asleep standing up in a minute," he explained. "I'll see you later."

He opened the door to Treize's office before the teacher could come to his feet to get it for him as courtesy demanded and disappeared through it, leaving Treize to stare at the back of the door in bemusement. What, he wondered, had he just agreed to? The last time he'd been anywhere near one of Zechs's 'nights out' it had been a disaster.


	4. Chapter 4

****  
_A/N - For those of you interested, the t-shirts all really exist! _

**.**

**.**

**Wild Roses – First Blood**

**Chapter Four**

_Early June AC 191 _

_Lake Victoria Military Academy_

_._

It was a little after ten to eight when Treize let himself into the cadet dorm building that was home to his friend, wincing a little when the heavy doors opened to let him hear the cacophony of sound coming from inside it.

The barracks were never quiet buildings, even in the dead of night. In the ordinary course of events, some three hundred cadets occupied each of the long, low, rectangular dorms, crammed into their two-person bunks, and with that many people in so tight a space, it was a virtual certainty that someone would be up and moving about. Still, it was normally a controlled racket – which this definitely wasn't.

Teenagers milled about the halls in various states of dress, some obviously ready to go out, others in their nightclothes or other random outfits thrown together. Others shouted questions and answers back and forward between rooms, or shrieked, or laughed at something they'd just been told, gesticulating wildly. A third group seemed to be in control of the multitudes of radios and laptop computers that were dotted about the building, blasting music into the air around them with no thought for the ears of their neighbours or for the fact that no-one was playing the same style or song as anyone else. The whole thing was chaos.

Trying not to show that he was cringing at every turn – surely to God he hadn't behaved like this as a cadet? – Treize threaded his way through the masses until he reached the corner of the second floor that housed Zechs and Otto. It was marginally more tranquil than elsewhere and Treize sighed in relief as he banged on the door.

It was opened almost immediately but instead of either Otto or Zechs holding the door, Treize found himself looking into the even, bemused features of Julian Larkspur.

He raised an eyebrow in surprise when the older officer grinned wickedly and stepped back to let him into the room with the words, "Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly," then turned to look over his shoulder and called, "Otto, I have another volunteer for your t-shirt collection!"

"I beg your pardon?" Treize asked, as the door was closed solidly behind him.

"Otto went shopping this afternoon," Larkspur explained, ushering Treize across the room. "He decided our little night out needed a theme but he got a touch carried away. Just nod, smile and agree – it'll be quicker."

"Agree to what?" the redhead demanded, trying not to resist too obviously.

"Whatever he wants you to wear," Julian answered, shrugging. "Really, it's not worth protesting. He'll only argue you into submission."

Prompted by the words, Treize glanced at the other man's clothes, raising one eyebrow at the colour of his close fitting t-shirt and the second at the slogan printed across the chest.

"Good Lord," the younger officer remarked. The bold black writing read, 'I prefer men _out_ of uniform!' and as for the colour…. "I am not wearing anything pink!"

Larkspur laughed at him good-naturedly. "God, no," he agreed. "Not with your hair."

Treize had more been thinking that he wouldn't have been caught dead in pink under any circumstances, whether it would have clashed with his hair or not. It wasn't a colour a man should ever wear, as far as he was concerned, but he held his tongue and settled for nodding.

"Excellent," Julian said. "Otto, suggestions please!"

From the other side of his bed, which was currently covered in clothes, Otto looked up, looked at Treize and went wide-eyed. "Bloody hell, no!" he spluttered. "Sir, are you trying to get me killed?" he asked Larkspur. "I wouldn't dare!"

"Oh, come on," the Engineer encouraged. "I'm sure Khushrenada will be good sport about it." He looked at Treize. "Won't you?"

Treize merely smiled, sweetly.

"See?" Otto said quickly. "I like my balls where they are, thank you. Besides…," his alarmed expression faded into an impish grin as he tilted his head to one side and looked Treize up and down blatantly, "…look at him. Why on earth would I want to change that?"

There was a moment's silence in which both other men scrutinised him closely and Treize began to feel seriously uncomfortable, and then Larkspur nodded. "You might have a point," he told Otto reflectively. "You do dress well, for a straight man," he said to Treize.

Treize glanced down at his simple – if expensive and perfectly tailored – outfit of shirt, slacks, shoes and belt, and frowned. "I'll take that as a compliment, I suppose, although I have a new appreciation for how the rabbit in the headlights feels."

Otto blushed, suddenly realising what he'd said and to whom; Julian laughed and clapped Treize on the shoulder. "I'll bet you do," he agreed. "Sorry for that," he said contritely.

Treize shook his head, dismissing the sincere sounding apology. "May I ask where Zechs is?" he enquired, as it occurred to him he hadn't yet seen the blond and that there was no real trace of him.

Otto gestured over his shoulder at the bathroom door. "He's getting ready, though what's taking him so long, I don't…."

The dark-haired cadet stopped mid-sentence as the bathroom door clicked open and Zechs stepped out.

"And speak of the devil," Otto continued smoothly, barely missing a beat, "and he shall come. Will you always do that on command, love?" he asked the blond, catching him totally off-guard.

Larkspur snickered whilst Zechs cast his roommate an evil look. "Shut up," he warned the other boy flatly. "Sorry I wasn't here to let you in," the blond added, addressing the words to Treize. "Otto wasn't too awful about insisting on the stupid t-shirt thing, was he? I told him to leave you alone."

"He did," Treize confirmed. "Although I'm informed it's because he doesn't want to alter the way I look rather than any instruction of yours."

Zechs blinked. "Fair enough," he replied, a half-second too slowly. Treize couldn't tell for certain, of course – Zechs was wearing his darkened glasses – but he got the distinct impression that the blond had just given him a lightning version of Otto's blatant eyeing.

He chose to ignore it as he looked at the younger man's own clothing, surprised to see it was remarkably similar to his own, save for being pale blues and greys, rather than black. "Do I want to know how you got away with it?" he wondered.

Zechs sighed, and unfastened the top few buttons of his shirt. "I didn't," he confessed. "But at least my t-shirt was mine to begin with."

Treize raised an eyebrow as he read the words, 'Good boys don't ask. Bad boys find out for themselves!' absently noting that the grey print on a clinging white background would work as well with Zechs's grey trousers as the icy blue shirt did. "Was it now?" he asked softly. "Such a shame you've always been a model student, then, isn't it?"

Laughter bubbled out of the blond. "Like hell I have!" he protested. "But before you object too much, it was either this or Otto was going to choose. You, ah, really don't want to know what that one said," he muttered, blushing.

Treize smiled affectionately. "Don't I?"

"Oh, but you do!" Otto interrupted. "I bought it particularly with Zechs in mind but he refused to wear it." He crossed the room as he spoke, letting Treize get a first good look at what the dark-haired boy was wearing. "So I am, instead."

Treize's expression blanked into utter shock. "Good God!" he choked.

Otto's t-shirt was a lovely shade of dark-red, long-sleeved and neat, perfectly acceptable except for the image printed on it – a stick figure cartoon of one man kneeling in front of another standing, accompanied by the slogan, 'Let go of my ears, I know what I'm doing!'

Blush deepening, Zechs threw Otto an absolutely killing glare, silently promising every level of hell he could personally summon, and then shook his head. "I didn't think the colour would suit me," he tried weakly.

"The colour, eh?" Larkspur teased back when Treize didn't respond, then deliberately looked at his watch. "Would you look at the time? We'll be keeping everyone else waiting. Move it, gentlemen!"

.

* * *

.

_Early June AC 191_

_ Kampala City - Uganda_

_._

"You don't have to," Zechs said quietly, so quietly that Treize doubted anyone but himself had heard the younger man. "You really don't."

The officer looked over at his younger friend, wondering when Zechs had moved close enough to him that they were almost touching. "I know," he replied, just as softly.

"I should have thought before I asked you to come," the blond murmured. "It's rare Otto and I go out now and don't end up down here by the end of the evening. It just didn't occur to me we would with other people along."

Treize frowned slightly, looking at Zechs closely in the poor light. The boy's eyes had fixed on Treize's as soon as his roommate had suggested continuing their evening in Kampala's gay village and hadn't really moved much since. He hadn't said anything until they'd been within spitting distance of the clubs, but Treize was getting the impression that he'd been asking the same questions silently for the entire walk.

"Zechs, it's all right," he reassured. "It's a logical enough decision." It was, but he didn't think that was helping his friend much. "Really. There are six of us, and of those six, three of you are gay and Noin is so used to being with you and Otto that she's completely happy being here. There's only myself and Liliya who might have issue and I promise we're both perfectly capable of walking away and going somewhere else, or going back to base, if we decide we want to."

"I know, but…." Zechs trailed off, mid-sentence and shrugged unhappily.

Their party had started out quite numerous, with half a dozen instructors joining almost thirty of their pupils on their jaunt into town. It had taken some doing to get everyone together but they'd managed and found themselves in a little bar off a side street in Kampala just after nine.

It was nowhere Treize had been before, though Liliya – looking sassy and almost approachable in her trousers and corset-fitting top – said she'd been before a few times. The cadets had explained that it was where they usually started their evenings; the staff knew they were all underage but didn't give them difficulty over it as long as no-one got too drunk or caused trouble.

Bemused by this insight into cadet life, Treize had placidly sat with his former students as they nattered and drank, mostly talking to Liliya and the other officers but keeping a weather eye on Zechs.

To his surprise, it appeared that the younger man had learned how to drink without landing himself in a coma, pacing himself skilfully so that by the time the group began to fragment up to go on to preferred individual pastimes, he was not sober but not drunk, either. He was, Treize thought, watching him, pleasantly tipsy.

Otto's suggestion that they wander down to the gay village had jarred Zechs from his fuzzy state a little, forcing him to concentrate as he tried to bail his teacher and friend out of something he, mistakenly, believed Treize would hate.

He might have had cause to think that, of course. The one and only time Treize and Zechs had been in the same gay club, Treize had reacted spectacularly badly. That he'd been reacting to specific things he'd witnessed and not to the environment wasn't quite computing for Zechs, but then, Treize had only agreed to come out tonight as part of his plan to finally convince his younger friend that he didn't have an issue with him being gay. If they were going to maintain their relationship now that Zechs was moving away from needing Treize as a parental figure, then they had to be able to share some aspects of their private lives and that was never going to happen if Zechs didn't feel he could include the older man in his social activities with his other friends.

"But, what?" he asked the blond now. "I'm not going to lose my temper with you again. Keep me from seeing anything I shouldn't and I'll be fine, I promise."

Zechs tensed a little and Treize sighed. "I do actually have gay friends other than you, you know," he informed the younger man, voice still low. "Major Larkspur, for one. I keep telling you it's not an issue…."

"I know," Zechs interrupted. "I'm just…. Ignore me, will you? I'm nervous, that's all. We haven't done anything like this before and Otto and that bloody t-shirt stunt knocked me before we started. I'm going to kill him for that when I get him alone, I swear," he said, sounding ticked off. "I told him not to show that to you and instead he goes and wears the damned thing!"

"I'd gathered you were less than pleased with him on the way here," Treize chuckled, recalling the vicious tongue-lashing Zechs had bestowed on his friend. The blond had pulled his roommate back a good few feet behind the rest of the group as they walked but Treize's hearing was superb and he'd still caught snippets and odd phrases. '…not fucking funny, you prick…' and '… why the hell am I still talking to you…' had featured quite prominently. "Admittedly, the implications of it were rather more than I ever needed to know," the older man confessed.

Zechs blushed, the stain of colour obvious even in the poor lighting. "Which is pretty much why I told him not to do it," he answered. "Otto still can't get his head round the idea that all this is… hard for you," the younger man added softly. "He thinks that, since you were fine with the two of us at Christmas, there's no problem at all and that he can be as blunt with you as he is with me. Trying to get it through to him that maybe that's not the case is like talking to a Leo."

The mental image of Zechs shouting at an Otto-sized mobile suit made Treize smile a little but the boy's words were too disturbing for it really to form. Catching Zechs's arm in one hand, Treize drew him a few paces away from everyone else in the little group, into the shadow of the wall of the club. Zechs blinked at him in surprise, but he followed the tug on his arm willingly enough.

"Nothing about you being gay is 'hard' for me, Zechs," Treize insisted quietly, shifting his grip on the younger man from his elbow to his shoulder and bringing his other hand up to match it on the other side. "Please start believing that. If I had an issue with it, I would have told you by now, don't you think?"

The blond nodded. "I suppose so," he agreed. "I told you, just ignore me for a while."

Treize smiled. "All right," he consented. He let his hands tighten for a moment, then took a step back. He opened his mouth to say something else and stopped when a piercing whistle cut through the air.

Both men turned to look in the direction of the whistle, finding that Otto and Larkspur were standing a few paces away with speculative looks on their faces. Which of them had whistled, Treize had no idea, but the intent was clear.

Otto tilted his head and held his hand out to his bunkmate, beckoning him with a smile that might have been apologetic, leaving Julian to raise an enquiring eyebrow at Treize as Zechs shook his head in resignation and went to his friend.

"Should I ask what that was about?" the Engineer asked, turning to watch with his colleague as Zechs shoved at Otto a little too hard for it to be playful and then took his hand willingly enough, scowling only until Otto looked up at him pleadingly.

"Only Zechs fretting," Treize replied, amused by the way Otto was manipulating the blond. Zechs had declared every intention of being angry with his friend for the rest of the evening but it didn't look much like he was going to be able to follow through in the face of Otto's 'kicked puppy' act.

"Oh? Worried about letting you see what he gets up to of an evening, is he?" Larkspur chuckled.

Treize shook his head. "I have a very good idea of what he gets up to, thank you. He was worried I wouldn't be comfortable being here, that's all."

The older officer raised an eyebrow. "Considerate of him," he said neutrally. "I'll admit I was about to ask you the same thing. Valadin seems fine, but that's Valadin."

"Do all gay men assume the straight ones are frightened by them?" Treize asked conversationally.

Julian frowned for a moment. "Sorry?" he asked, then shook his head. "I wasn't implying you were frightened, Khushrenada, just that you might find the idea of another man coming on to you a bit unpleasant."

"Should I? Would you be bothered by a woman approaching you?" Treize laughed softly. "Aside from anything else, I'm not arrogant enough to assume that every gay man I meet will find me attractive."

"Strangely enough, yes," the other man answered, "I do find women making a pass at me uncomfortable. Most gay men of my acquaintance do. That's why I was asking if you were all right. As for not assuming…." The engineer suddenly grinned wickedly. "Don't assume we don't find you attractive, either."

Treize's eyes widened in surprise, but before Larkspur could really begin to laugh at the expression, the redhead had squared his shoulders, turned on his heel and followed his students to the door of the club.


End file.
